Beyond the ABCs: 鈥╯chools that offer personal development and add spice to life
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After a day at work, some young people go home to their families. Some go out for a couple of drinks with friends. And then there are those who spend their evenings going back to school.
In a new trend online, the keyword search term 鈥渘ight school鈥 are starting to appear more frequently, especially on lifestyle platforms.
Take the popular site called Xiaohongshu (Red), for example. The tag 鈥淣ight school鈥 recorded nearly 9 million views in the past two months, while on Dianping, the term soared 980 percent in the same period.
But these aren鈥檛 night schools in the traditional sense of education. Rather, they are opportunities to pursue unfulfilled interests, add some spice to the dull routine of life or simply have fun and meet new people.
鈥淚t was as if I were back in my childhood, when I went to extracurricular activities after school,鈥 said office worker Zhang Youling, who signed up for a dance class at night school. 鈥淲hen I was little, my mother forced me to learn piano, but now I can pursue my own interests.鈥
Night classes were very popular during the 1980s and 90s, giving people who missed out on high school or college education the opportunity to make up lost ground. At the time, the curricula at night schools mirrored the courses of mainstream secondary and higher education.
The current offerings at night schools, however, are not necessarily academic, but rather focus on leisure endeavors like playing musical instruments, calligraphy, foreign languages, coffee making, baking and yoga.
The Shanghai Citizen Night School, organized by the Shanghai Mass Arts Center, is the most popular destination for the new generation of students.
In the past autumn session, more than 650,000 people applied for about 10,000 class slots; the most popular 600 classes were fully booked in just one minute. Tuition is modest: 500 yuan (US$70) for 12 classes that last for three months.
鈥淗alf of our students were born after the 1990s, and 80 percent are women interested in lifestyle courses,鈥 Wu Penghong, director of the center, told Shanghai Daily. 鈥淚鈥檓 glad that young people now are keen to keep learning new skills after graduation. Many of the teachers are true masters of their disciplines.鈥
Zhang said she signed up for night school on a friend鈥檚 recommendation.
鈥淚 felt that I was gaining weight and my health was suffering from sitting at a desk all day,鈥 she said.
鈥淏ut gym work was not for me. A friend suggested I learn dancing, which is more fun than jogging or weightlifting.鈥
Zhang said that the class has a friendly setting with an experienced dance teacher. After three months, the class was able to dance together to a full piece of music.
鈥淭he movements were gentle and uncomplicated, yet they invigorated me with better body coordination,鈥 she said.
Apart from traditionally popular subjects like music and arts, niche classes were added to the school鈥檚 autumn curriculum last year and will return for the upcoming spring session. They include lessons in sign language and Traditional Chinese Medicine courses.
In many places across China, night schools are venues that promote cultural awareness. In Inner Mongolia, for example, a class in the traditional Thangka paintings of Xizang is offered, while African drum lessons are held in a karaoke bar in the city of Chongqing. Subjects like Shaoxing Opera, cross-talk, and diverse dialects are also included in the curriculum.
With government-funded night schools reaching capacity, private institutions are all too eager to take up the slack. However, the lack of supervision over their activities is becoming a challenge.
While recruitment information floods social media, most private night schools don鈥檛 reveal who is funding them, and potential students are often told to join online chat groups to sign up for courses.
鈥淚f you search the 鈥榥ight school鈥 tag on Xiaohongshu, most posts you find are in accounts under screen names such as Shanghai Night School or Beijing Night School,鈥 said marketing manager Eva Liang, who was looking for an evening handicrafts course. 鈥淔irst, they asked me to join a chat group on Red, and then on WeChat. When I joined the group, the organizer asked me to add her personal WeChat to pay the deposit.鈥
Liang said the organizer offered more than 10 types of classes, but none of them was a go until enough people, usually 10 to 20, signed up.
鈥淭he chat group had only 72 people, and they all wanted different courses,鈥 she said. 鈥淚 waited for three days and no handicrafts class was formed.
鈥淲hen I asked the organizer who was behind the night school, she just said, 鈥榓n institution.鈥 That smelled fishy.鈥
Liang also said that descriptions of the courses at the night school often seemed thin on relevance and content information.
She finally concluded, 鈥淚t might be a good platform to meet people, but not a good way to actually learn anything.鈥
Wu from the Shanghai Mass Arts Center said it鈥檚 not surprising that dubious entities spring up when a popular, trendy business takes off. The result can be confusing and even chaotic.
鈥淲e are trying to open classes in companies, suburbs and industrial zones to make it more convenient for people to attend,鈥 he said. 鈥淥ur goal is for our night school to be available in all towns and subdistricts of Shanghai in three years.鈥
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